


oblivion is not her place

by wearethewitches



Series: the empty is not eternal sleep [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel & Demon Interactions, Angst and Feels, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Demons, F/M, Fallen Angels, Love Confessions, Nephilim, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 06:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17116265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Meg doesn't understand where or when she is.





	oblivion is not her place

She got in close, all her black, tortured soul cosying up to the unicorn in a trenchcoat. It burned, at first, Castiel surprised and barely restraining himself from smiting her – Meg kind of liked it, funnily enough. Getting the angel blade was her first priority because no way in _Hell_ was she going up against hellhounds unarmed – but that touch? That _Grace_ - _upon_ - _soul_ that followed, when Castiel swung her around and kissed her up against the wall?

Oh, that was _fire._ Angel fire.

It changed her, that’s for sure. Crowley loved to point it out when she was on his rack, carving along the edges of her meatsuit. Said, _there’s something about you now, Meg, something flinch-worthy around the edges…s_ he never paid it any mind, didn’t even squirm under Crowley’s watching eye. Meg was Alastair’s pupil, Azazel’s progeny – she’s stronger on the table than she is off it.

Meg probably should have paid more attention.

Floating around the world, now, Meg knows something is wrong. She’s supposed to go where demons do when they die, she’s supposed to be in some kind of oblivion. Meg isn’t meant to be a phantasmal force wandering the Earth.

 _Fucking Crowley,_ she curses him for killing her, even as she worries over Cas and her Winchester’s. _Oh, who am I kidding? They drove off as soon as they saw me go down…_

Meg feels an itch, though. It’s persistent – like the time she left her meatsuit, the dark-haired one with an abusive father and worse boyfriend – and she decides to follow the tug on her non-existent navel. She races across the world under cover of darkness and quickly becomes tired, as if she’s flying as smoke rather than just… _wandering._

Then, of course, she wonders if she just dreamed it all up and takes a meatsuit for her own. It’s the same. She takes their body, swarming their pretty little soul and chaining it down as she gets comfortable, like she’s actually alive and kicking.

“…am I alive?” Meg asks herself, absorbing the surface information from her newest vessel. Quickly, she pokes holes in her own reality because it’s not Halloween of two thousand and _one_ and it’s ridiculous, it really is…but she must have been hallucinating. Demons don’t dream. “Or maybe this meatsuit is mad.”

The whole world must be mad, it turns out, unless Meg has time-travelled. October thirty-first turns into November first and inside, the human soul rubs up against her demon-ness and _pushes._ Before Meg even knows it, she’s being rejected and the body rebels. There are sores and the heart over-works, the brain starts frying.

 _Salvation was created for sinners,_ Meg thinks, remembering a dead hunter who said that to her before she exits the meatsuit, letting it drop to the cold concrete in the dead of night. _There’s something wrong with me._ Because Meg- Meg is old. Meg is thousands of years old and she knows how meatsuits work. Meatsuits don’t react like to demons like that.

That’s how they react to fallen angels.

 _What happened to me?_ Meg asks herself, not willing to take a trip down to Hell just to check out what she looks like under a better light. Instead, she follows that pull west, which she has a funny feeling leads to the same brown-eyed brunette with the fucked-up family who Meg had possessed for a couple of years.

It does, which is a kicker. Meg reaches out to the body and is overwhelmed by…by _something._ A barrier. It feels like the kick her previous meatsuit dealt her, before the body started to die. Her mind though – that’s ripe for the picking, so Meg reaches out into her dreams, once the boyfriend has left the room, off to torture one of his other captives with his bleeding knife.

 _Hello,_ Meg says, disgusted at herself. It’s like she’s pretending to be an angel, following angel rules and angel custom. _I need to borrow your body for a while._

The girl is so broken and frightened. Last time around, she’d been a shell of a soul, destined for heaven. Meg had taken over her body and done the girl a favour, booting her out on her way through. This past version of her has more fight in her, no dead babies and barely any scars. She jerks to attention like her future self won’t, conscious mind rising over subconscious as her dreams – of happier times, of the few months of freedom she had after running away and a fast-food restaurant – melt away to darkness.

That’s Meg’s fault. She turns the lights on and the girl gasps at the twisted copy of herself, with blonde hair and blood smeared over her face. Meg grimaces, shifting the image.

“I’ve not gone into someone’s dreams in centuries, hold up for a second.” The dream shifts again and Meg turns herself a little backwards, blonde hair returning to brown and the broken nose healing. The blood, she leaves, because blood is blood – nothing wrong with a little red. “As you can see, I’m a little fucked over, so I need a pretty little human body to use while I’m rocking about.”

“A- a body?” the girl asks, afraid and timid. She isn’t even _curious._ Meg sighs. Sometimes humans can be more depraved than the demons that turn them, eventually.

“Yeah, a body – your body, sweet-cheeks. You’re the only one I can take. Call it _divine intervention,_ ” Meg blows a stray hair away from her eye that gets stuck on blood, tucking it behind her ear manually when it sticks.

“Divine – like God?”

“Yup, like God,” Meg says, not knowing what’s up or down at this point. If God _is_ involved, he’d better have a damn explanation for it. “So, yes or no? I’ll even kill the psycho locking you up, if that makes it easier to take.”

“Kill him?”

Meg shrugs. “It’ll be easy. Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

A kind of barrier falls and Meg immediately sinks into her skin. She shivers at how _good_ it feels, healing her body’s injuries and hurts. The girl’s soul is sucked inside and it’s quite odd, but rather than screaming, chained and being a little shit inside the back of her head, the girl…sleeps. Meg shivers at the thought of it.

 _Part of possession is meant to hurt,_ she thinks, grimacing. She doesn’t expect the door to open suddenly, the boyfriend glaring at her.

“What was with the light-show? Huh? You think you can play possum and fucking burn my lights out?” He lunges, ready to stab her hand through the bedding, but Meg grabs his wrist, easily turning it on him, slitting his throat. She stands and shudders at the sudden breeze, making a face.

“Ugh, really? I need clothes…”

With the man dead, it’s easy to release the other captives, who barely realise what the fuck is going on. Meg finds some clothes and calls the police, doing a good deed – Castiel would be proud. Then she gets out of there, running off and ransacking the next town over’s mall, like last time this happened.

One leather jacket and jeans later, she’s set, with the exception of her old shirt and necklace. Meg might be a little disgruntled at the fact that she’s lost them, more than _attached_ to each item – but she makes do with a fancy set of lace underwear and a low-cut purple tank-top with a few cute buttons.

Then, _then,_ Meg hustles some money up at the local bar over pool, steals someone’s butterfly knife out their own pocket and gets herself a room in a motel so she can figure out what the _fuck_ is up with herself.

“Mirror, got to get to a mirror…” she mutters, spilling her vessel’s blood in the sink till the basin has a decent puddle in the bottom. Then, she starts finger-painting around the edges of the mirror, using some old spells Azazel shared with her, when she was younger and still learning what it meant to be his child.

Meg can see herself by looking at it, usually, able to see past the layers of flesh and blood to the other dimensions of existence. However, it’s no more than cursory – only in Hell could Meg actually see right through to the centre, unless she did this little looking charm. When Meg activates it, she expects to see the usual darkness of a tortured soul, with a little _kick_ because Meg isn’t your normal demon – she’s mid-tier, age-old and powerful. She’s lived so long and was dug into so well by Alastair and her father, Azazel, that Meg can’t even remember her human life.

 _The type of thing between fallen angels and demonised humans,_ she thinks, _less powerful than Lilith, more powerful than demons that rose in the ranks like Alastair._

Her true form isn’t like it should be.

“The Hell?” Meg mutters, peering closely at herself in the desecrated mirror. The spell is already overloading, fracturing the mirror as the seconds go by. Soon – far before she’s finished looking – it shatters and the spell breaks, the mirror shards falling into the basin of blood.

 _That wasn’t a normal demon soul,_ Meg thinks, befuddled. She leans against the wall behind her, wondering if this is new – a part of dying. It could be. That would mean, though, that it hadn’t started a long time ago. _Crowley noticed the start, remember?_

Castiel had burned her with Grace. It had done a heck more than the holy fire did.

“Think about it,” she whispers to herself, closing her eyes. “Think about it…” She steps back, in her mind, remembering what she saw and thinking about it in the abstract. _What does it look like?_

Well.

That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?

Because Meg knows the answer – of course she does! She was there when Tom was made into a demon, when Azazel claimed his Hell-bound soul – not that he was much of a soul. Nephil are strange, like that.

Half-angel children with enough Grace to be brought low and enough soul to slip through the cracks of an angel smiting are rare. Tom was one of those rare few, one of Azazel’s blood children born of a human women and Azazel in his True Vessel. Tom thought himself so _special_ , even if what made him more than human had been obliterated when the Heavenly Host dismembered him and ground his Grace to less than ash.

“Azazel told him,” Meg shakes her head, not wanting to think of the implications. “An experiment? Or maybe it was just a hard-on for Tom’s patriarchal standards.”

Meg punches through the glass shower door. She screams and rages, murdering the landlord who comes to check on her and leaving his body to rot as she stalks out of town.

_Damn nephilim!_

Meg must have begun healing, when Castiel kissed her, touching her with angelic Grace so much like what part of her soul used to be made of. It was out of attraction – out of fondness and newly-budding love. Aka: a recipe for disaster. _He kickstarted a process I can’t stop_ , Meg figures, knowing deep down that it’s her own fault for setting him off, that she could have gotten his angel blade if she’d only _asked._

“Fucking _Castiel,_ I hope you’re listen because I swear on my father’s name I will _dismember_ you,” she snarls under her breath, honestly wanting him to hear, to listen to her _pray_ and appear at her side. Meg wishes and-

And-

 _Who are you?_ A voice, an _angel voice_ reaches out from a connection Meg can’t fathom. A million-million voices suddenly feel so far away, talking just out of hearing range. Meg stops still in the street, ignoring how people bump into her as she puts her bloody hands to her head, eyes squeezing shut.

“Castiel?” she whispers, confused.

 _Who are you?_ The voice repeats itself and Meg thinks it’s him, that it _must_ be him. The voice asks her, _Are you an angel?_

“Far from it,” she whispers in return. Her prayer is to Castiel and then voice – the angel, her Castiel – replies in confusion.

_Then what are you?_

_Something out of your darkest nightmares, Clarence,_ she prays and smiles to herself, feeling his confusion twist and change. _Come visit me, Castiel. Your meatsuit’s called Jimmy Novak. Remember to make his family think he’s dead._

Castiel seems to want to reply but has no words. The connection dims and disappears, leaving Meg on a random street in a town on the border of Michigan, hands covered in blood and a grin growing on her face.

“Step one,” Meg says to herself, then concentrates, pooling her power and doing something she’s not done in years – teleporting.

The fading smell of sulphur is left behind in her wake.

* * *

“I won’t be a demon,” Meg says to herself in a different mirror, in a different town. Her eyes are black and she wants to savour it, because who knows what will happen, once her angelic half starts reacting to her darkness. The bottle of Jack Daniels is another comfort, one she takes great strength from in her trying time.

“I won’t be a demon,” she repeats, before taking a swig from her bottle as her eyes flicker black to brown and back again. _No,_ she thinks, wanting to murder her way through Pontiac, Illinois. _Being a demon’s all I know._

Meg wonders what it was like, being a nephil. How did she die? What angel killed her?

There’s a familiar flutter of angel wings behind her and Meg shakes her head, smiling. _No weapons, no protection…_ she’d tried warding herself against angels but found it a bit _difficult,_ per say, to get past the wards herself. Luckily, the angels wouldn’t be able to exorcise her if they tried. _My body now, bitches,_ Meg thinks, leaning against the sink as she turns around, Castiel right in her face.

“…no trenchcoat,” she mutters, kind of surprised. Castiel’s vessel is clearly dressed for bed. “Kind of weird, I’ll admit.”

“What has a trenchcoat got to do with my appearance?” Castiel replies, frowning. “You are some strange form of demon. Your soul is…”

“My soul is none of your business,” Meg breathes, wondering…well, wondering what to do. Castiel isn’t _Castiel_ , here. The Winchester’s are their own form of corruption, one Castiel hasn’t been exposed to yet.

They look at each other, for a time, just standing there. Meg takes a sip from her bottle, not taking her eyes off of him.

Eventually, Castiel looks at the bottle, even more perplexed than before. “Alcohol is poisonous.”

“Hi, I’m Meg – I’m a _demon._ Poison is my business,” Meg replies, rolling her eyes. Castiel frowns deeper.

“I am Castiel, an angel of the Lord. I am here to investigate your existence. Why did you threaten me with dismemberment?” he asks, voice clear and lacking the intonation she’s used to. “How did you even pray to me? The darkness that you embody should be irreconcilable with the concept of true prayer.”

“What can I say? I’m _special,_ ” Meg replies and _oh_ , she’s weak to the Jack Daniels now, if she can’t control her own mouth. Come to think of it, she does feel a little loopy and her stomach is swirling. “I’m what happens when fallen angels get their hands on powered-down nephilim. I didn’t even _know._ My father is a fucking liar and _he didn’t tell me._ ”

Meg surges forwards, bunching up the fabric of Castiel’s shirt as she grabs it. He’s clearly disturbed at her actions, eyes widening as he leans back into the wall she presses him against.

“You, though, you’re why I’m like this,” she hisses, angry and afraid. It’s two thousand and one, not two thousand and thirteen and Meg is _afraid_. “I’m fucking _reverting_ , Castiel. I was once one of the more powerful demons in all of Hell – all of creation, I’d say if I was trying to be cocky and lying my ass off – and I’m tainted with light because of _you._ ”

“How am I to blame?” Castiel questions, eyes still wide.

“I died,” Meg tries to tell him, desperate and half-drunk and _alone_ “I died twelve years from now. I was a turncoat and in love with an angel and then I was _here_ , in this time and I had to _ask for permission._ ” Disgust coats her voice and she shakes him, slightly. “Castiel, I had to ask my own meatsuit if I could take over her body. I’m turning into something new and I don’t know what I am and _you-_ ”

Castiel raises his hand, detaching it from his pyjamas. His voice is suspicious as he speaks to her, but still as confused as before. “Meg, if that is really your name – what sort of creature are you? You speak of strange things, like nephilim and taint. I don’t know you, but you act like you know me.”

“I _do_ know you, Clarence. Hell, if you could remember everything I did, we wouldn’t be standing around here just _talking._ ” Meg smiles behind closed lips, thinking of her Castiel, who understood what _moving furniture_ was when she asked and smiled.

“I am not called Clarence.” He says instead, back to the very beginning. “You are aware of my true name. Is it some way to avoid my attention? And I do not know you.”

“I’m not mentally kooky and fucked over, I know you don’t know me,” Meg shakes her head and she even straightens out the stripy button-down pyjama shirt he’s got on a little, patting his chest and resting her hand against him. His Grace is _warm,_ close up. “Time travel. It messes up relationships. You’re not the Castiel I know. Last time I saw you, there were Angel Tablets involved and I don’t think you’re that experienced enough to know much about them, yet.”

“Angel Tablets?” Castiel questions, distressed. It’s the most emotion he’s shown so far. “What do you know of them?”

“Too much,” Meg laughs and she steps back, finally, when what she wants to do is lean her head against his chest and cry. His Grace is so _full_ and _angelic,_ except it doesn’t hurt as much to look at as it used to and somehow, Meg knows that it’s different, too.

Smaller.

 _God hasn’t given him an upgrade, yet,_ she thinks, remembering the rumours that made their way to her. “Castiel, I’m a wreck.”

“You are not broken,” he replies in a monotone. Somehow, that makes her burst into laughter for a brief, sharp moment. It hurts what remains of her cold, beaten heart. _This is not my unicorn,_ Meg thinks, going to drink her Jack Daniels when it suddenly disappears from her hand, mid-swing. “My superiors have ordered me to watch you and keep you alive.”

“Excuse me?” Meg questions, knowing exactly what he just said.

“My superiors have ordered me to watch you and keep you alive,” Castiel repeats.

“Give me back my drink, kiddy-Cas,” Meg says in a threatening voice, glaring at him.

“I am thousands of years old, not a child. Alcohol is poisonous to your vessel and clearly inhibiting your functions. I am meant to keep you alive. You will refrain from drinking such beverages.”

Meg stares in horror. “You’re serious.”

Castiel blinks at her, despondent. “Very.”

“…we’re out of here,” Meg immediately replies, swaying as she leaves the bathroom, not expecting Castiel’s healing touch to induce immediate sobriety as he follows her, barely grazing her arm. She almost trips over her own feet at the change, her power writhing in pain at the Grace-filled gesture. She gulps in air. “Healing a demon? Well done, angel-face.”

“Where are you going?” he asks, watching her pack her meagre supplies away into a bag.

“Where _we_ are going is _away_ ,” Meg replies. “Your vessel lived a life here, Castiel, which means people will get confused if they see you. We need to leave and go somewhere very far away from here.”

“I am uncomfortable taking you to another destination,” Castiel says frankly, which takes Meg a moment to decipher.

“Oh, no, no honey – we’ll take a bus,” Meg assures him, slipping into _Nurse Masters_ without much of a thought. Taking care of Cas is going to be a theme in her life, for sure. “I’m _really_ not up for being dragged around by angel express. Does weird stuff to my soul.”

“Your soul is in an unfortunate state,” Castiel says. Meg sighs.

“Can you change your clothes, or something? You’re going to attract attention in pyjamas, angel-pie.”

“My attire is appropriate,” he replies.

“No it isn’t, trust me,” Meg says, eyeing him up. “Pyjamas are for sleeping in. You don’t sleep, you aren’t _pretending_ to sleep and if you leave a bedroom with them on, you’re going to attract attention – attention we don’t want, if we want to stay safe.”

Castiel’s head tilts, rather like a birds. “To keep you safe, we must remain incognito,” he says, obviously thinking. Meg waits, patient. “You expected a trenchcoat,” he says.

Meg nods, noticing how he’s been on her tail ever since she left the bathroom. “Personal bubble, Cassie,” she murmurs, before stepping into his. “Can I show you? The future you, I mean.”

Castiel eyes her with suspicion, eyes narrowing. “How?”

“An exchange,” Meg smiles, now, thinking up something fast. “Get up close and comfortable with me and I’ll show you the future, baby.”

“I am not an infant,” he says, but he asks her, “What kind of action do you propose?”

Meg reaches out to him with her powers, gentle and slow. She can see him trying to retreat from the darkness, but he holds on, stays put. Physically, she inclines his chin, pressing their lips together and closing her eyes. His Grace touches her and it feels like _fire,_ like pain and cleansing, just like the last time – except this time, Meg concentrates on that feeling, wanting to rip the band-aid off.

Castiel, bless his angel heart, seems to only realise what is happening after bare snippets of the future slip into his head. Meg gives him two memories, the first of trapping him in a ring of holy fire, of how he tripped her and held her, using her to escape. The second is the kiss in the hospital, of Dean holding out the demon-killing knife and how she took his angel blade – how she kissed him, reached into his pocket and was swung around and pushed against a wall, before they left her behind to fight hellhounds with part of his Grace in hand.

When she pulls away now, Castiel is obviously perplexed. He stares at her and his hands make aborted movements to do the same trick – to pick her up and swing her around – but he contains himself. Meg reaches up, brushing his hair back through her fingers.

“My unicorn,” she smiles tiredly. She feels burned, inside and out, but everything aches. Meg can’t tell whether it’s a good ache or a bad one.

“…I am not him,” Castiel replies quietly. “Do not make this what it is not.”

“I won’t,” Meg promises, knowing she kept the rest of her Castiel away – that this Castiel never saw him wrapping her wrists and never saw himself call her thorny pain _beautiful_. Her Castiel is gone, lost in another future that won’t come to pass – or another universe, maybe and isn’t that a killer of dreams.

But her hand lingers on his chest, where it’s fallen and a moment later, Castiel is dressed in a familiar suit and trenchcoat. His tie is done badly.

“Can I fix it?” Meg asks, fingers creeping up the blue fabric. It’s always been messy.

“You may,” Castiel says, watching her.

“One difference,” she murmurs, joking, “perhaps I’ll look at you one day and not see him.”

Castiel tilts his head again. “Human philosophy is adamant that losing love is devastating. Moving on is vital for recovery.”

Meg looks at him sharply. “When did I say I was in love?”

“You said you loved an angel,” Castiel replies simply, unaffected by his own words. “Did you not mean me?”

There’s a long silence, before Meg leads him out of the motel to the bus station, arranging them tickets cross-country. The ensuing ride is silent, with Castiel by the window so he can watch the world go by – a gift, on Meg’s part, because she knows this Castiel hasn’t seen it, no matter what he says.

 _For all your years,_ Meg asks him in prayer, _have you ever loved someone yourself, Castiel?_

 _Only my Father,_ he replies, but there’s a pause, like he wanted to say more.

Meg leaves it be.


End file.
